When computing changed from the Private Property model of the separate PC to the Deepstate Property model of web-based apps, tyrants won the battle for our memory. Brendan Eich played a major part in this loss when he designed Javascript for use by tyrants.
Let’s follow the long trail of long term memory vs no memory in mechanical recordkeeping.
First, of course, a bookkeeper keeps BOOKS by definition. Transactions are recorded in permanent stone or paper books and kept forever if necessary. Each business keeps its own tablets and jealously guards their contents. Secrecy and modularity are necessary for civilization.
The traditional method has both short term and long term memory. The journal by etymology is a record for one day. It’s normally in pencil to allow corrections when you strike a balance at the end of the day. The ledger is entered weekly or monthly, summarizing and categorizing the journals. The ledger is in ink. A correction in a ledger must be visible and preferably commented.
The first stages of mechanizing were strictly short term. An abacus doesn’t store anything, because the book itself was taking care of storage.
Cash registers do have storage, typically at the day level. The register holds totals for each category (produce, canned goods, frozen). The bookkeeper inserts a special key (lock-type key, not keyboard-type key) that isn’t available to the cashiers, reads out the daily registers and records them in the journal. A register could carry longer records but typically doesn’t.
Hollerith’s computer echoed the cash register. It had a series of dials that could be used for any purpose, determined by the software.
You could program one dial to simply count up all the punches in column 5 of a card, or all the punches in 5 and 15 and 60, or to keep a longer record of each movement of certain other dials. You could have some journal-like dials and some ledger-like dials.
Mainframes continued the distinction. Magnetic core memory was the pencil, used in each step of the program and then reused for the next step.
Tape drives were the pen. It was technically possible to rewrite a segment of a tape, but you’d risk affecting nearby segments, so a tape was generally recorded once and then unaltered.
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The earliest PCs were all pencil, no pen. They quickly added short-term floppies and then long-term tape backup.
As PCs and operating systems grew, local pen storage of your own data and your own choices was a guaranteed “right”. The data and preferences were stored in various places, sometimes in the program’s own folder and sometimes in the various Windows facilities like Program Data or the Registry. Microsoft respected the property “right”, trying to leave each program’s choices alone. When you stored a picture or text file, or set a program to display in your favorite font, or set an editor for your favorite paragraph format, you could count on the data or preference to stay where it was.
The web pulled all memory and logic and choices away from your own computer and returned them to the mainframe where Deepstate wanted it. The transition was gradual, with a big step when cellphones made private backup nearly impossible. Now even desktop programs are moving fast toward mainframe-based. You get to punch your cards and send them to the Computing Center, and you have no idea what happens to them after that.
Brendan Eich wrote Javascript to enable this transition. Unlike all previous computer languages including Java itself, JS has NO way to save data or choices permanently on your own computer. You can store data in a ‘cookie’, but the browser or the cybersecurity watchdogs may delete the cookies at any time, with no control by the program or user who intended to store the data. All cookies are public space like the old Commons, no private fences or locked file cabinets allowed.
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